Content marketing and innovation programme communications

Iain Stewart, the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes South, visited our offices on Friday 31 January for an update on progress since our move to Milton Keynes last November. Chief Executive, Steve Yianni presented the Catapult’s ambitious plans for a world-class innovation centre based in the Pinnacle Building at the heart of Milton Keynes, due for completion by the end of May.

‘To raise the profile of the Transport Systems Catapult we now have a Blog, that will highlight and weave together the many strands of our activities, outside the more formal structure of, this, our News section.’

When new technological developments have caused major market disruptions, it’s often the effect of combining several technologies that makes an innovation seem revolutionary rather than any single breakthrough innovation…

After just a few weeks, and about 400 miles, of driving my new BMW i3 I’ve found the stated range heavily depends on driving behaviour, which in my case has skewed towards conserving energy. On longer journeys, I generally get more range than that stated…

You might reasonably think, with today’s always on communication technologies, that within the time-critical operating environment of the modern airport, someone must know, precisely, when an incoming passenger aircraft will have taken off, and when it will arrive…

Transport Systems Catapult is keen to improve its understanding of the processes used by UK local authorities for making initial assessments of the impact of implementing new transport concepts – especially those that are innovative and take a radical approach to solving long-term or difficult transport challenges.

As one of the themes was transport disruption, the second of our two workshops to generate ideas for using sentiment mapping in the transport sector, was, with somewhat ironic coincidence, convened amidst strike action affecting London Underground services.

Alex Burrows, Transport Systems Catapult’s Head of Innovation Challenges, will be kicking off – as first speaker – at a launch event this Thursday showcasing Smart Transport Innovation in Leicester and wider Leicestershire.

19 December 2014 - The Department for Transport (DfT), supported by Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), is piloting a competition that will grant fund novel research of innovative solutions to its key challenges, named the Transport-Technology Research Innovations Grant (T-TRIG). Applications will be accepted from today, with a deadline of midnight on 26 January 2015.

With just a week left to apply, and to aid the application process, the Department for Transport (DfT) has collated a summary of follow-up queries arising from two webinars hosted by DfT and KTN (on 3 and 6 November), summarising the questions received as a ‘FAQ’.

22 October 2014 - The Department for Transport (DfT) from today is inviting entries to a competition seeking concepts to help mitigate NOx emissions from road traffic, offering a total of about £300,000 to fully-fund projects designed to address air quality on the strategic road network.

The aim of the competition was to support projects that take advantage of the increasing accuracy, coverage and speed of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) such as GPS and other non-satellite technologies such as iBeacon, Wi-Fi and radio frequency identification (RFID) to build innovative location-based services or improve the user experience of existing services.

The competition closed on 11 June 2014, and the results pdf - output on 14 September 2014 - include projects for improved rail track worker safety, freight transport logistics, plus a InnovateUK funding award for the Satellite Applications Catapult.

Despite the title, the view of the academics at the Internet of Cars symposium organised by Sixth Sense Transport transport, was that vehicles have never functioned as network in themselves, rather - in the absence of useful connectivity of cars so far - using mobile technology, people have taken upon themselves to become connected.

Soon however, with technologies such as eCall, cars will become connected and emit more and more data. As Chris Speed of Edinburgh University observed, “as cars get networked, drivers will need to be sensitive to the data they send out”.

Dr. Alexander Hars, of German software company Inventivio GmbH, has reported in his blog Driverless car market watch that on the a webinar update on 4 September given by the CityMobil2 project at the end of two month trial of a driverless bus service, hat reported ‘mixed results’ in a real life road tests.

Due to an unusually fast-tracked schedule and significant media interest in the Technology Strategy Board’s Driverless cars competition, held in London on Wednesday 30 July, caused the unusual circumstance of the ministerial press announcement, registration opening and briefing and networking events all to occur on the same day.

Due to an unusually fast-tracked schedule and significant media interest in the Technology Strategy Board’s Driverless cars competition, held in London on Wednesday 30 July, caused the unusual circumstance of the ministerial press announcement, registration opening and briefing and networking events all to occur on the same day.

Newly completed research highlighted a perceived lack of clarity about the precise meaning of low emission commercial vehicles. Since there is no drive cycle test suited to the operation of commercial vehicles there’s no certainty that any commercial vehicle will actually qualify as ‘low emission’ in real operating conditions. This uncertainty was found to have the effect of deterring investment in low emissions vehicles, in response to which LowCVP’s Andy Eastlake described work on developing a more representative drive cycle.

Ricardo has previewed the objectives and full lineup of Project FEVER, a two year Innovate UK supported collaborative R&D project for which it will design through-the-road hybrid demonstrator vehicles integrating Control Power Technologies electric motors within the rear axle, for similar efficiency gains as for full electric hybrids but offering significantly cheaper manufacturing costs.

KTN has published a comprehensive review of the latest calls for proposals within the Horizon 2020 Fuel Cell Hydrogen Joint Undertaking provided by Jean-Luc Delplancke, Head of its Programme Unit. The 88 minute webinar offers detailed guidance for potential applicants for the latest round, offering a total of €117.5 million of funding - with a deadline for applications of 3 May 2016.

My Electric Avenue, a three-year Ofgem-funded project that has been carrying out trials to discover the impact that charging clusters of electric vehicles (EVs) might have on local electricity networks at peak times, has extrapolated its findings to state that, across Britain, 32% of local electricity networks (312,000 circuits) will require intervention when 40% - 70% of customers have EVs.

As its Ofgem Low Carbon Networks funding comes to an end, the My Electric Avenue project a Turning the Corner finale event on 3 December 2015 to share its results of its trials of the effects of operating high local concentrations of electric vehicles on the electrical grid.

The event will also provide details of what is described as a ‘Legacy Initiative’ to provide the platform for collaboration between the automotive and utilities sectors.

By chance or by prescient timing, on the day following official release of the Draft Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 for ‘Smart, green and integrated transport’, KTN hosted a brokerage event for the European Green Vehicle Initiative (EGVI), that's one of three ‘calls’ within the EU Commission programme, that attracted 48 delegates to explore its funding and collbaoration opportunities.

In Droitwich, Worcester, on 3 September KTN helped engender lively networking and promotional endeavours for some of the most potentially rewarding funding support for UK businesses seeking to rise the chalelnge made by Innovate UK for industry to go even further in innovating to reduce CO2 emissions of road vehicles.

In the Regents conference centre, behind Chateau Impney, built Louis XIII style by the nineteenth century salt magnate John Corbett, a beneficiary of the country’s canal infrastructure. More recently, in keeping with a location at the heart of the UK motor industry, the grounds were host to the Chateau Impney Hill Climb speed trials.

Both competitions offered support to innovative, commercial solutions to increase the resilience, quality of life or economic performance of urban areas by integrating environmental, social and/or economic data with data from other sources, with the projects to last two years and the feasibility studies one year.

On 15 April 2015 in Solihull, prospective candidate companies grasped an early opportunity to impress with their suitability as potential partners at the Innovate UK and Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) Spearheading electric vehicle battery production competition briefing and networking event.

The winning project for the Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) competition Unlocking the hydrogen energy market, that sought proposals in the autumn of last year, have recently been announced.

The winning project featured proposals for quality assurance of hydrogen as a fuel; a proof-of-concept fuel cell powered unmanned aircraft for marine applications; a non-polluting replacement for diesel or petrol generators; thermoplastic composite vessels and pipes suitable for hydrogen; and a safety safety sensor unit for vehicle hydrogen tanks.

The 2014 Future Powertrain Conference, running today and tomorrow at the National Motorcycle Museum near Birmingham showed that legislation for low emissions is driving vehicle powertrains towards complexity - and greater opportunities for engineering solutions that could profit UK industry.

Also under Low Carbon Vehicles Proof of Concept IDP 8 funding call, Ricardo's CryoPower engine project - also described as the Split Cycle Engine, has been funded in partnership with the University of Brighton and Hiflux Limited together awarded £430,381.

A selection of NVN's previous awards winners were on display inside and outside the LCV 2013 halls, including the Morgan Plus E, developed in partnership with Zytek Automotive and Potenza Technology, shown above.

The projects, each lasting no more than 6 months, have been funded to develop a range of innovative low carbon solutions for both niche and volume vehicle manufacturers. Investment into the engineering projects has been provided by the NVN (a network of niche vehicle manufacturers, specialist technology and supply chain companies), with backing from the Technology Strategy Board and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).

Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, that since 2009 has published a directory of UK companies with low carbon automotive capabilities, has published an online version of the directory, opening it up for companies to submit their own details.

The money will be used for private sector investment in one or more demonstration-scale advanced biofuel plants in order to drive the development of the UK’s biofuel industry.

Advanced biofuels are made from materials, for example municipal waste and forestry residues, using complex processing techniques. They can produce a wide range of transport fuels including replacements for those used in road transport and aviation.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said, “I am delighted that we are able to support these innovative technologies and believe that they will bring significant benefits to the UK. There are real opportunities for the UK to take a technological lead, driving growth, creating highly skilled jobs and seeing energy, security and environmental benefits."

“It is clear that in the long term advanced biofuels will be important in areas that we cannot otherwise decarbonise, such as aviation. This announcement will help put the UK in a good position to meet this demand.”

The £10 million prize is to encourage commercial and investment opportunities in Britain’s car industry. It will be presented for the technological improvements which enable ultra-low emissions vehicles to run as long as and as far as conventionally fuelled cars, without needing to stop or burn fossil fuel.

Included in the Government's spending round, as presented to Parliament last month, was a commitment to continue to support the development of electric vehicles, including by offering a prize of up to £10 million dedicated Research and Development funding to develop long-life battery technology for electric vehicles.

Details of this and other aspects of the Government's commitment to the transition to ULEVs will be set out in the ULEV strategy later this year.

However, that prize was dwarfed by a what George Osborne described as "an historic shift in the UK’s approach to roads, underpinned by the biggest programme of investment since the 1970s".

"By 2020-21 the Government will treble investment in major new road enhancements from today’s levels", as stated in Investing in Britain’s future, the document presented by to Parliament by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

A study by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the EU Commission's in-house science service, on recent research on electric cars in the EU suggest that better exchange of information and more coordination between projects would result in a better leverage of the €1.9 billion investment, 65% of which comes from public funding.

Two recent reports on low carbon vehicles have presented strongly positive endorsements for the potential economic benefits, in terms of economy as a whole and UK car manufacturing sector in particular.

What are the challenges and opportunities for post-project winners of the first Innovate UK R&D competition call? This was the opening salvo question, posed at the KTN and Innovate...

What are the challenges and opportunities for post-project winners of the first Innovate UK R&D competition call?

This was the opening salvo question, posed at the KTN and Innovate UK 12 April ‘cohort project exchange day’ at the London headquarters of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, held to listen to and assist successful participants in the first Vessel Efficiency competition, launched back in 2013.

The UK Marine Industries Alliance (MIA) has launched an industry Code of Conduct for surface Maritime Autonomous Systems, to help establish “pan industry agreement on aspects of Surface Maritime Autonomous Systems (MAS(S)) development, design, production and operation in advance of and alongside the establishment of governing regulations”.

The code specifies nine ‘Industry Principles’ intended to make sure that such systems are operated safely and responsibly, and in compliance with regulations.

The code was produced by the UK Maritime Autonomous Systems Regulatory Working Group, that was established in 2014 to focus on the regulation of unmanned surface vehicles, and currently has over 30 members from a broad section of government, industry and academia, including KTN.

The competition results were published by Innovate UK in a document dated 7 April 2015 listing eight projects that succeeded in the assessment stage of this competition, noting that these were subject to grant offer and conditions being met.

The National Oceanography Centre in Southampton’s main seminar room was ‘full to the gunwales’ for InnovateUK’s local introduction to two new marine R&D funding competitions, networking, ‘elevator pitch’ session and illuminating case histories from winners of the two previous marine competitions.